Saturday's 3 Park Rove...

Saturday started with high temperatures and humidity, and continued like that all day. So it was decided that it would be a good day to go for a long drive and activate a couple of parks along the way.

Traffic along the 401 corridor was terrible. I have no idea why people have to drive like such idiots on that highway, weaving in and out of lanes, and doing twice the posted speed limit. Needless to say not a single Police car was seen all day.

First park of the day was the furthest away, that was Richardson's Lookout Conservation Area  CA-5649 in Northumberland County, about 175 km to the west of my home QTH. This spot is located on top of a lonely hill that sticks up from the surrounding flat farmland by about 120 metres. 

Propagation here was: SFI=148, SN=125, A Index=8, and the K Index=3. Radio was my KX3, and 40m and 20m hamsticks for the antenna.

I was on the air with the first contact in the log at 1546 UTC, W1BAP had that honour. Only 14 stations made it into the log before I decided to move on the my second park. Best contact of the whole day was a 50 km 2m simplex contact on 146.520 with Chris VE3OZG.

The second park was CA-5645, Ball's Mill Conservation Area, near the village of

Baltimore. This was not the easiest place to find, and it took me an extra 15 minutes messing around to find the site as my GPS took me to the wrong place. 

There were no changes in the propagation numbers at this park, and I continued to use the KX3 and hamsticks with good results.

Band conditions then started to definitely get worse with very high band noise and QSB. I ended up finishing this activation with just the minimum 10 contacts on the log, I just couldn't pull anymore contacts out of the noise.

It was a 30 minute drive to the third and final park, CA-5637, Goodrich-Loomis Conservation Area. Unfortunately by the time I got there and set-up, conditions had deteriorated to the point the bands were almost dead. So that activated never even got off the ground.  

All-in-all it was a good day out with 2 of the 3 parks activated. I got to play radio while the bands stayed open, and I got to see part of the province I haven't seen before. 

I'm already planning a return to the area and working some more new parks. Stay tuned!

Stay Safe Out There!

The Summer Support Your Park Event...

Last weekend was the POTA Summer Support Your Park Event, an event held 4 times a year, and one I look forward to.

These SYP Events are held once per season, and encourage us to get out into nature and operate from the big shack under the big blue sky, and that is exactly what I did this weekend.

It's no secret that over the past 3 months the bands have been absolutely terrible, and for those, like myself, who choose to operate QRP only, contacts have been hard to get. Regardless of that fact, I set myself a goal of doing a minimum of 6 activations over the weekend. 

Over the course of 2 days I managed to activate the following parks: CA-4877, CA-4872, CA-6003, CA-4882, CA-0023, and CA-4864. It was difficult to do, as between very noisy bands and deep QSB, contacts were hard to come by over the weekend. It was not unusual to call CQ for 10 minutes with no responses, and then get 2 or 3 contacts in a row.

Propagation over the weekend was:

Saturday: SFI=156, SN=167, A Index=12, and the K Index=2.

Sunday: SFI=153, SN=139, A Index=7, and the K Index=1

Best contact over the event was with Rubens IU1HJF, in Northern Italy on 20m SSB, at 0029 UTC on Saturday. He was my one and only DX all weekend. While I was getting 52 and 53 from North American stations, I received a 57 from Rubens. Needless to say, it made my night, that was my first DC in nearly 3 months. 

It was nice to work a lot of my "regulars" over the weekend. These are the guys and girls who hunt we activators, without them it would not be possible for us to get the job done. 

I'm already looking forward to the Fall SYP event that is held on the third full weekend of October. 

Stay Safe Out There!

What's with the bands?

Today was a quiet day around the house, so I decided to get out to a park and do an activation. It's been a week since I have managed to escape and play radio. Way too much going on around here during the summer months for my liking.

Parrotts Bay was my go-to park today, I thought it would be cooler down by the lake, but In was wrong. The 30C (90F) temperature was a killer with no wind to help cool things down. It was also extremely busy with people parking there and crossing the road to go swimming in Lake Ontario.

Propagation today was: SFI=139, SN=155, A Index=23, and the K Index=1. The band noise and deep QSB were brutal and I'm sure they cost me some contacts. Today's activation was a mixture of CW and SSB on both 20m and 40m. Neither band was very good.

Radio today was my KX3, and I used my JPC-12 vertical antenna with the new 40m coil. It seems to work fine, it's certainly no worse than a ham stick. After an hour I packed up with 12 contacts in the log.

I wonder how long it will be before the sun settles down, the bands open up, and the DX re-appears?

Here's todays contact map:

Stay, cool, hydrated, and safe out there!!

POTA SYP Summer Event

This coming weekend, July 19/20, is this summers Support Your Park Event, where a frenzy of POTA operators try to activate, or hunt, as many parks as they can over the weekend.

Many activators use these events, held once each season, to go for the POTA Rover Award, not as a contest, but as a personal challenge to see how many parks they can activate in a 24 hour period. My best, so far, is 10 parks in 24 hours.

I haven't seen any long range propagation forecasts yet for the weekend. Hopefully it improves and we get a weekend of good weather and good propagation. It's been a long time since that combination happened around here. 

I'll be out Friday evening for a late shift activation, and again Saturday morning. I'm hoping for an easy time this event, and plan on only activating 5 parks which is very easy to do.

This is a world-wide event, so get out and make some contacts!

Stay Safe Out There!!

Field Day 2025 - The Aftermath...

Field Day this year can be summed up in three words: "Hot and Humid". Between the heat and lack of decent propagation it was not a good weekend. 

I managed to give myself a dose of mild heatstroke while we were setting up on Saturday....apparently I still haven't learned, at my age, to wear a hat and drink plenty of water on hot sunny days. That set me up for an even worse weekend than I was going to have.

I manned the 40m SSB station, and my antenna for the weekend was a 29' (9m) EFRW vertical, with a 9:1 Balun and four 17' radials. This worked well, and tuned 6m through 40m with no issues. Now it will tune on 80m, but I'm not too sure it would be very effective there. The only difference between the way I use this antenna, and the way Salty Walt uses his, is the fact he only uses one 17' radial and I use four.

The propagation on Saturday: SFI=118, SN=103, A Index=21, and the K Index=1

The propagation Sunday: SFI=122, SN=104, A Index=9, and the K Index=2.

On top of this the Solar Wind was up to over 550 kps all weekend, and that was causing lots of deep, and unwanted, QSB for everyone. 

We operated QRP, with five stations working on batteries, and we had eight of our club members out for the event, and many thanks to Jim VE3ULC for the use of his property.

I managed to put a rather pitiful total of 67 contacts in the log, all weekend, and most of them I had to really work to get. 

Did I enjoy myself? No, not really. The company and food was great, but I think doing POTA has spoiled me for portable operating in a relaxed environment. Too many participants of this year's Field Day were contesting, instead of treating it as an emergency operating event that it is supposed to be, according to the ARRL. And of course, with POTA, everyday is Field Day so it is no longer special. Will I continue to participate in Field Day? Probably, but not in the way I have done in the past.

Here's a few pictures from the weekend:

Eric, VE3DN, our CW guy!

VE3FI's station

Don, VE3MNE's home for the weekend

Stay Hydrated and Safe Out There!!!

Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour 2025...

This past weekend saw the 52nd running of the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour. As usual, our club provided the VHF communications throughout Frontenac County. This was our 19th year providing comms for the event.

We look after nine locations over two separate routes, and this year we only managed to have seven of those locations up and running due to a few technical issues. Part of the issue is the fact that we have had to relocate our 2m repeater this year, and the new site does not cover the whole are as we would like.

For the fourth year in a row the number of riders was down, we hope this will improve next year with a change in the tour management. 

The weather was extremely hot and humid both days, and shade was at a premium at the authorized rest areas. You cannot imagine the amount of water the cyclists drank on route. 

I was operating from the Perth Road Village Community Hall. The ladies auxiliary from the local church sold snacks and coffee there, and they did a roaring trade. I hear the homemade apple pie was to die for.......I stayed strong and didn't eat any!

The quiet before the storm.

They're Here!!!

Are We On An Upturn?...

It was a rough week propagation wise this week. The bands were in terrible shape and very noisy with incredibly deep QSB.  

In spite of this, I decided on Tuesday to head out and try and activate Lemoine Point. The propagation numbers didn't look too bad actually, SFI=151, SN=138, A Index=24 and the K Index=3. I gave up after 40 minutes with no contacts in the log at all. 

On Wednesday I headed out again, this time to Parrotts Bay, and once again the propagation numbers didn't look too bad, SFI=139, SN=112, A Index=9, and the K Index=3. This time I spent an hour calling CQ, both on SSB and CW, and once again I put zero contacts in my log. Pretty discouraging I thought. 

Thursday dawns bright and clear, and I decide to go out and try to operate portable once again. This time it was off to the Frontenac Biosphere. Here's the propagation numbers: SFI=137, SN=113, A Index=13, and the K Index=1. Success!! First in the log was Pierre VE2EH, and I ended up with 13 contacts on 40m, and 2 on 20m. 

Conditions were terrible. The QSB was very bad and some signals completely disappeared in seconds, never to be heard from again. I was just glad to be making a few contacts!

What was very strange is that I, as a 10w QRP SSB station, was getting S6 to S9 signal reports, yet I was hearing them, the 100w home based stations, at about S3 to S4. Very strange conditions.

Here's Thursdays contact map:

Stay Safe Out There!

Let's Get Out and Support This!!...

I'll be out tomorrow to support this!!